Exercise and Its Benefits

What if there was a pill that would keep you fit and lean as you aged, while protecting your heart and
bones? What if it was as good for your brain as for your body, if
it made you stronger, more confident, less susceptible to
depression? What if it improved your sleep, mood, and memory and
reduced your risk of cancer, all while adding life to your years and
years to your life? A great number of studies have found that exercise can provide
all these benefits and more[11,12]. In other words, exercise is preventive medicine as well as antidote. For the world's healthiest and most long lived people, their daily lives are full of
exercise at every stage and age.

Exercise erases the effects of stress and improves your resistance to
stress

Exercise combats the corrosive effects of too much cortisol,
a product of chronic stress that can bring on depression and dementia

Exercise is one of the few ways to counter the process of aging
because it slows down the natural decline of the stress threshold

Exercise lifts your mood[3]

Exercise increases your level of serotonin and endorphins, brain
chemicals that affect your mood and sensations. Thus it can improve mood and could even fight depression.

Exercise counteracts the natural decline of dopamine, the key
neurotransmitter in the motivation and motor systems

Exercise boosts the immune system

Exercise is the pump to the lymphatic system as heart is the pump to the cardiovascular system

Those who physically active have a 50 percent lower chance of
developing colon cancer[3]

Exercise helps your brain

In mice, cathepsin B was causing the growth of new cells and connections in the hippocampus, an area of the brain that is central to memory.

Experiments showed that blood levels of cathepsin B rose in mice that spent a lot of time on their exercise wheels.

What's good for the heart is good for the head

Exercise reduces silent brain infarcts[8]

Exercise improves learning on three levels

It optimizes your mind-set to improve alertness, attention, and motivation

It prepares and encourages nerve cells to bind to one another,
which is the cellular basis for logging in new information

It spurs the development of new nerve cells from stem cells in
hippocampus.

Exercise holds off dementia

Exercise improves mood and balances neurotransmitter function

Exercise increases neuroplasticity and neurogenesis

It does this through naturally increasing BDNF, or
brain-derived neurotrophic factor. This is super fertilizer for
the brain. It improves the function of neurons, helps them grow
and sprout new connections, and protects them against cell death.
It is the key link between thoughts, emotions, and movement.

One study from Japan found that jogging 30 minutes just 2 or 3
times a week for 12 weeks improved brain's executive function

You can't learn difficult material while you're exercising at
high intensity because blood is shunted away from the prefrontal
cortex, and this hampers your executive function. However, blood flow shifts back almost immediately after you
finish exercising, and this is the perfect time to focus on a project
that demands sharp thinking and complex analysis.

In Arthur Kramer's study of 60- to 80-year-olds, MRI scans show that, after just 6 months of aerobic walking, the exercisers' brains looked 2 to 3 years younger on MRIs than they actually were[6].

Kramer recommends fast-paced "aerobic walking" at a speed of about 3.5 miles an hour, or two miles in about 35 minutes.

A study has found that people who exercised regularly slept
almost an hour longer each night and fell asleep in half the time it
took others[5]

Sleep doctor advises that you should stop exercising 4 hours before bed[9]

Dr. Steven G. Pratt[4] also lists all the diseases and conditions that exercise can help prevent and/or improve:

Coronary artery disease

Heart disease

Stroke

Colon cancer

Endometrial cancer

Breast cancer

Prostate cancer[13]

Osteoporosis

Obesity

Type II diabetes

Depression

Dementia

Cataracts and macular degeneration

Chronic lung disease

Arthritis

Disability

Can you imagine what would happen if a pharmaceutical company
developed a drug that could accomplish these benefits and risk
reduction? It would be marketed and sold in a manner that would
make the sales efforts for Viagra look modest in comparison. If you're looking for a panacea or a miracle pill, it doesn't exist. But, exercise is almost like one. Hear more on what people say about exercise:

Jack Lelanne

Exercise is
king. Nutrition is queen.Put them together and you've got
a kingdom!

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

If you can't fly, then run. If you can't run, then
walk. If you can't walk, then crawl. But whatever you do,
keep moving.

Types of Exercises

Choose any activity that fits your lifestyle. To improve your overall health, you can focus in four areas:

Aerobic capacity

Aerobic exercise is good for preserving the heart, lungs, and brain

The most benefits were found in people who walk 6 hours a week, even 2 hours a week can make a difference

Indoor activities include:

stair climbing

elliptical trainer

indoor rower

stairmaster

stationary bicycle

treadmill

Outdoor activities include:

cross-country skiing

cycling

inline skating

jogging

Nordic walking

Indoor or outdoor activities include:

kickboxing

swimming

kettlebell

jumping rope

Strength

Activities that involve bouncing or jumping help strengthen your bones:

tennis

dancing

aerobics class

jumping rope

basketball

running.

Strength training controls cortisol more effectively when
combined with aerobics than aerobics alone.

If you suffer from back pain, ask your health care professional
about stretching and strengthening exercises

If you have a family history of heart disease or are under care for a medical condition, check with your health care professional before you begin to exercise. Otherwise, you could start slow with an easy activity that fits your lifestyle. Gradually, you can add other low or non-impact aerobics such as
walking, biking, or swimming to your routine. Make sure you stretch before and after a workout; it will help
your endurance.

Finally, remember this: move or die. Since many of us don't work in laborious jobs, "leisure-time activities" become essential. One study found that physical inactivity was an even greater
risk to health than tobacco smoking. In a study, conducted on a Chinese population, 1/5 of deaths of those over age 35 in Hong Kong in 1998 were due to physical inactivity. So, as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. suggested, let's keep moving.

Reference(s)

Studies at the Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts
University

The sweet spot for exercise benefits, however, came among those who tripled the recommended level of exercise, working out moderately, mostly by walking, for 450 minutes per week, or a little more than an hour per day.

Those who spent up to 30 percent of their weekly exercise time in vigorous activities were 9 percent less likely to die prematurely than people who exercised for the same amount of time but always moderately, while those who spent more than 30 percent of their exercise time in strenuous activities gained an extra 13 percent reduction in early mortality, compared with people who never broke much of a sweat.